1. Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to video coding systems, and more particularly to a mechanism to mark a reference picture for video coding.
2. Description of Related Art
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) (i.e., H.265) is a video coding standard developed for coding a video signal. In HEVC, reference pictures are marked only at the beginning of decoding of a first slice of a current picture. The marked reference picture remains until the completion of decoding of the current picture. There is no marking process after decoding of the current picture. After completion of decoding of the last slice, no marking is applied to the decoded picture list. As a result, there is a one frame delay in releasing of decoded picture buffers (DPBs), which are no longer necessary to be stored for reference by subsequent pictures to be subsequently decoded. Because the memory requirement of the DPB is large for high resolution videos, maintaining the DPBs results in suboptimal usage of memory resources.